


beauty, her artificers

by Senri



Category: The Marriage of Aphrodite and Hephaestus (Greek Mythology)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21830839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senri/pseuds/Senri
Summary: Shortly after their wedding, Aphrodite sustains a small wound.
Relationships: Aphrodite/Hephaestus
Comments: 22
Kudos: 124
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	beauty, her artificers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lesserstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesserstorm/gifts).



> Dear Lesserstorm, thanks for your lovely prompts. This is a bit experimental for me but the idea bit me and wouldn't let go. I hope you enjoy it. Happy yuletide!

It was three days after their wedding when Hephaestus came to her with a shape wrapped in linen. Aphrodite accepted the parcel, watching his eyes glance away from her steady gaze; studied the homely face, the twisted nose, the low brow, the coarse hair like boar’s fur.

The linen unfolded to reveal an armband worked in the shape of a swan in flight. The wings, inscribed with details to indicate the lines of plumage, curved around to form the part of the armband that circled the arm. The graceful neck extended in a curve as well, as if the swan searched for the perfect place on the water to alight.

“Does it please you?” Hephaestus said in the face of her silence.

“Very much.” Aphrodite set the linen aside - evenly woven, perfectly white - and slipped the arm band over her wrist til it clasped her upper arm. It was no stretch to understand his strain; newly wed they did not know each other well. Aphrodite felt confident in her seniority and her power, but not entirely pleased to have been married off to an interloper on Olympus.

Well, an interloper; he’d been born here, then flung away like a burnt piece of bread. Hera had deserved her humiliation. Aphrodite, on the other hand, was prepared to fight her own corner if Hephaestus turned that trickery on her. Renowned as the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite knew herself capable of wielding her gifts. They were especially effective against gods and mortals who couldn’t think to look deeper than her flawless skin, her charcoal-dark hair, her ocean-dark eyes.

Beauty like hers had a deep stillness, an imposing flawlessness, like a blanket of fresh snow. It invoked the same hush. She rotated the arm band so that it could best be seen, the most detail facing outwards, the graceful lines of the swan’s neck clearly showcased. Hephaestus didn’t shy away when she leaned closer to give him a gentle kiss, but he blinked at her with those dark deep-set eyes and nodded before retrieving his stick and laboring away.

A craftsman would need steady hands to serve his craft. Likewise she’d heard of the healers working at his temples, a skill that indicated consideration. Steadiness and consideration: worse skills could be found in a lover.

-

The next day Aphrodite dismissed her attendants and went to her husband’s forge. She’d never attended Hephaestus at his work before, and the forge was where he spent most of his time. Standing in the doorway, Aphrodite felt the temperature change, smelled smoke and godsweat. Hephaestus had built golden automatons to assist him as he worked, to work the bellows, wipe sweat away from his brow when he had both hands full, and carry small pieces and tools back and forth when he was preoccupied. Dim orange light filled the smithy and made the automatons gleam ruddy gold. Hephaestus was in the middle of pulling a sword out of an open bed of hot coals.

“Husband,” Aphrodite said, not moving from the threshold, and Hephaestus startled so badly he dropped the sword back into the coals. The sword falling in shifted the coals against each other and sparks leaps up and whirled in the still air of the workshop like snowflakes. 

Aphrodite had seen the pale scars stippling her husband’s shoulders and arms before and not given them much thought, but just now she felt a point of heat alight on one cheekbone, where it settled and burned and burned. She clapped a hand to her cheek with a gasp and backed out of the threshold, back into light of day.

Mortal fire could never hope to burn a god. Hephaestus’ forge burned on Mount Olympus and Aphrodite, gasping for breath, felt that point of heat eating away at her, winnowing inward. A clatter of sandals announced Hephaestus bursting out the forge door. He didn’t carry his cane, but a long-handled, dripping ladle.

“Aphrodite! Come,” he caught her by her arm and drew her closer. Aphrodite stumbled near him. “Look up.” Fingers under her chin, tilting her face, before Hephaestus poured the water, into her eye first. Aphrodite realized what was happening and removed her hand from her face. Her charcoal eyeshadow washed into her eye and over the face but the chill, the chill like a poultice of snow washed over the burn, began to soothe it. Her epiblema was wetted down. Hephaestus poured the spring water slowly, making it last, and when the last of the water was drained drew away from her.

Olympus’ spring water held the cold and half her face felt numb. Aphrodite stood in the grips of an unfamiliar emotion, realizing she had no idea what to do. 

After a moment she laughed breathlessly. Maintaining poise consumed so much of her attention; on Olympus one had to keep one’s eye on what siblings, friends, rivals, sometimes all three in one, were doing. “My make-up is half undone,” she said. “Am I burned?”

Hephaestus’ face twisted more, into a helpless grimace. “I’m so sorry, my wife,” he said. “You are.”

-

In her room Aphrodite pulled away the poultice of spring water, saffron, honey, and ambrosia from the point of the burn. Healing arts were practiced in her temples, but she had little direct experience with treating wounds.

“I don’t know how bad it is,” she said. “It looks like some skin was eaten away.” In fact, the skin around where the spark had touched looked unwell itself; the wound exposed a yellow layer of fat under her skin, seemed to want to ooze. It was small, smaller than her little fingernail, but deep with a deep pain lancing from it, working its way like a splinter into her flesh.

“It’s not good.” Hephaestus hovered around, fiddling with his hands and uneasy. Of course a smith knew how to treat a burn; he had made her the poultice. “Aphrodite - I’m so sorry. Your face…”

So skilled with metalwork and craft, he seemed uneasy with words and his open remorse made it clear that he would never have wished harm on her otherwise. “I surprised you,” Aphrodite said, examining the burn further. “I understand. You didn’t mean to do this. You didn’t cause this.”

“No,” he agreed, but his face crunched down miserably. 

“It’s my face, Hephaestus. If anyone should be upset over its blemishing,” not ruining, she would never say that, “It should be me who has priority.”

“It’s not that!” That wide-eyed look again, cow-eyed as they said Hera was. At least one trait he’d inherited from his mother. “They call you smile-loving… Aphrodite is famed for her beauty…”

“I love my beauty, I enjoy it, but I’d hoped that wouldn’t be all that you cared for.”

Aphrodite was protected for an instant from the pain by the pleasure of seeing Hephaestus blush.

“Well, no,” he said to his hands, “But we don’t know each other well.”

“Ambrosia and honey didn’t heal the wound. I would never have guessed that ambrosia and honey from Aristaeus’ bees wouldn’t be sufficient.”

“It’s a bad burn. If the best Olympus has isn’t sufficient…”

“I was born from the seafoam,” Aphrodite said. “If godstuff and blessed water, saffron, and honey can’t heal me, let’s go down to the water.”

The shadows leaned towards afternoon now, but traveling by pure dark of night wouldn’t hinder those such as them. Hephaestus nodded. 

-

As it turned out, her husband was resourceful and ready for a trip within the hour. He had departed to make preparations while Aphrodite soaked a cloth in honeyed water and ambrosia once more, but she hardly had time to tend to the wound before he was calling for her from the courtyard.

When she saw their travel arrangements Aphrodite surprised herself by laughing in delight. Hephaestus had arranged a gold chariot, drawn not by mortal or even godly horses but by more of his gold automatons. They resembled some hybrid of deer and horse, and appeared almost too delicate to function.

“These will convey us safely down Olympus’ slopes?” Aphrodite said, managing to conceal her doubt. 

“They’re stronger than they look,” Hephaestus said firmly.

Well, he was the craftsman of the gods, a godly craftsman himself. Aphrodite nodded.

She had arranged for travel with a broad-brimmed woven hat with an open top so she could pull her hair through to take in the sun, and a heavier cloak. Hephaestus wore a heavier pack and carried a wrapped bundle - food, she presumed - and wore no hat. Solicitously he offered her his arm so it was easy to step into the chariot, and followed her in. Aphrodite took hold of the front with her free hand. Hephaestus’ bulk was reassuring behind her, no matter that he took some extra time to settle his stance and brace himself. 

“Go!” he called to the automatons. Fast as a thought they leapt, the chariot reeling off the ground behind them.

Aphrodite swayed back with their speed, then leaned forward, laughing. Hephaestus’ hand fell away from her back; he’d raised it to steady her.

The wind was fierce. It whipped her hat off her head and made it vanish and her mahogany hair whipped free and began to tangle. The beasts and chariot touched down on a promontory of rock for an instant; all before them was scree and steepness, furred with trees below. Clouds rose all around.

Sparks leaped from the dainty, precise hooves. Hephaestus laughed. They plunged down the mountain in lurching, joyful, erratic flight. If mortal eyes had glimpsed them they might have been mistaken for a low-flying shooting star.

-

The sea rolled out long and inviting before them. Aphrodite’s hair had already been tangled into submission by the wind of their trip, but the ocean breeze made a spirited try at tugging it into a new arrangement.

A low forest lay behind them, the chariot parked under the trees. “Sand in the axle,” Hephaestus had muttered. The twin beasts gamboled around on the sand with them, frisking to and fro.

“Aren’t you worried for sand in their joints?” Aphrodite asked him.

“I have olive oil for greasing them, and tools to attend them.” Something in Hephaestus’ tone suggested self-consciousness at letting his creations free to enjoy themselves. “They’ll be all right.”

He was having some difficulty keeping his balance on the sand. Aphrodite gave him her arm and he took it with an appreciative glance.

She had almost forgotten the pain of the burn wound, but as the cold mountain wind no longer washed over her face it returned. Whipped-up mounds of foam rocked on the water, and in places piled up on the sand.

“The foam on the water, or the foam on the earth?”

“I don’t think we’ll find it makes a difference.” Out of consideration for his weak legs, Aphrodite came to a curl of foam that rested on the sand. It had come off the water but its color was still off-white, the color of a bone ornament. Aphrodite shifted her arm and Hephaestus, getting the idea, took his own weight back and stood in careful balance.

The hem of her chiton dragged in the sand, heavy with seawater. Aphrodite scooped up seafoam with two fingers and rubbed it into her cheek. It felt soothing and cool and near enough to nothing at all; it felt like she was the painter applying paint, and as though she were Aphrodite applying her make-up.

“I remember standing up and seawater falling off in sheets around me,” Aphrodite said. “I was knee-deep in salt water when I stood and knew who I was.”

“Aphrodite Ourania,” Hephaestus said, voice low.

“I was impressed by your gambit to force Hera to take you back. Clever, to make use of how weak she is to flattery.”

“Although you’re the goddess of beauty, I feel as though you might be less susceptible to the like.”

“I am often flattered,” Aphrodite admitted. “I’ve learned what those words sound like and what they can conceal.”

“What can I do for you, my wife, that would please you more than flattery?”

“Keep making and showing me such wonderful, beautiful things.”

-

The sun burnt a coppery rime on the sea. Hephaestus’ strange beasts strode on their slender golden legs through the underbrush, no hitch in their stride from sand or damage. The olive oil Hephaestus had packed in case any devices needed greasing, Aphrodite poured into her hands.

Hephaestus sat in the chariot, with his feet on the ground. His leg muscles had twisted and cramped from the extra effort of balancing on shifting sand.

Aphrodite smoothed her hands over the gnarled, tight muscles. She hooked her fingers into points of tension that she found, stroked and probed til his protesting muscles unlocked from themselves, loosened and became warmer. She started at his calves and worked down to his feet, patiently studying the contrast of her hands, swan-pale and graceful, against his thick muscle, his rougher, darker skin, his dark hair. 

Once done with the feet she placed her hands on his knees and slid them up his thighs, pushing his chiton higher as she went. 

Hephaestus’ head had fallen back, his breathing slowed, under her ministrations. Now he looked up, breathing deep. Aphrodite rested her hands at the top of his thighs, leaned in close, giving her full regard to his rough, interesting face. She had worn the swan armlet.

“Wife,” Hephaestus said in a rough voice. “You have a small scar remaining. It’s like a snowflake on your face. Or a white fleck inside a white diamond.”

“That’s acceptable,” Aphrodite said, and leaned in closer to him, closer still. She was the older goddess and existed in a sphere beyond what any mortal or lesser god could hope to understand or touch. Still she could confer a divine warmth onto whoever she chose, and in that oceanside evening it was Hephaestus who held her deep, warm, abiding interest. “Show me more of what you make,” she said to him, after they were done. “I want to see where your imagination wanders. Make your wildest dreams real, only share them with me.”


End file.
